July 27, 2004

Without giving away any Six Feet Under plot lines….

…..am I the only one who has lost all respect for everyone in the Fisher household, save maybe Claire, this season? Nate for the constant whine, whine, whine, David for whine, whine and being dumb as rocks (if you saw the episode two weeks ago, you’ll know why), Ruth for being waaaaaaaay too trusting. I used to like the characters but I’m finding the family members extremely annoying this season. Even Brenda has gotten so blah. A baby? Seriously? Just a few seasons ago she was getting felt up by strangers while she shopped and now she’s thinking about kids? This isn’t going to end well.

I hate (in no particular order)

Sony- My Vaio was not charging so I sent it in to Sony. They have no idea where my computer is and no idea of when it will be fixed.

Nextel- I paid my bill on July 10th. My payment cleared on July 11th. Yet, they disconnected my phone while I was waiting for a call from Sony. Now, they want to charge me a $30 reconnection fee. I’d like to see them try.

Delta- My flight last night was delayed for an hour, for no reason that I was able to discern. Then, they boarded us on this tiny plane that you actually had to board by going outside and up the stairs. The flight only served pretzels (good thing that they asked me twice what kind of meal I would like and good thing I said vegetarian). They sat me near the bathroom in one of those seats that couldn’t lean back. Sigh.

Blogroll Update

What do you care about?

A friend of mine asked me recently who I thought he should vote for. My liberal readers may be happy to know that I don’t automatically say ‘Bush’ (but should be equally horrified to know that I’m asked this question all the time). I asked him what his major issues were and he said he would get back to me with a short list. It got me thinking that the summer before a presidential election might be a good time for me to lay out my own list. Here goes:

1. War on Terror. My choice candidate will understand that the war on terror is just that, a war, and he will act accordingly. This is the mother of all issues for me. If I thought, for one second, that Bush would falter or waiver from the war on terror, that he would ease us back into the September 10th blissful ignorance, he would not have my support.

2. Smaller government/low taxes. I know, I know, Bush is a big spender so how could I still like him? Well, first of all, see #1 above. Everything is a far second to me these days. Nothing will matter, not government spending or entitlement programs, if we’re all dead. Additionally, in order for me to vote against Bush because of his spending, I’d have to believe that Kerry would have more fiscal restraint. Now really, how many liberal career politicians have any such restraint? I love Bush’s tax cut and I think it needs to be made permanent.

3. Social Security Reform. I do not believe that Social Security will exist by the time I am eligible for it and it angers me to no end that I’m forced to pay into a system that will never benefit me. I would like to be able to use even a fraction of the money and invest it as I choose. Unfortunately, it seems that neither party is all too interested in making necessary changes. Too bad.

4. School Vouchers. Public schools, particularly in urban areas, just don’t work. It costs about $12,000 to educate kids in the decrepit public schools of NYC. My private school in Brooklyn, on a hill with grass and a class size of about 15, cost less. Parents shouldn’t have to send their kids to failing schools. They should be allowed to take the money that would’ve been spent on behalf of their child in public school and use it to send their kid to the school of their choice.

5. Gun rights. I know it’s odd that a Jewish girl from New York City is as pro-gun as I am. Peter visited me in Georgia and on his last day there we went to Kennesaw, the town famous for its law requiring every Head of Household to own a gun. They have near zero crime. The last murder they had was recently and it was someone being beaten to death. The murder before that was over a decade ago and it involved a knife. The big joke about gun control always involves Washington D.C. As you may know, guns are completely illegal within DC borders. Funny how it manages to be in the top 5 for gun deaths each year then. Making guns illegal insures that law-abiding citizens will not have guns while thugs and criminals certainly will. I worked with someone recently that was pro-life and saw that as his major political issue. He said ‘I just don’t trust candidates that aren’t pro-life’. I feel much the same way about gun rights.

These are my top 5. I have other issues that I care about but really, number one is, by far, my most important. So, readers, I invite you to share your 5 in the comment section (but please, don’t be like John Kerry- don’t just say ‘the economy’, actually offer what you believe might be working solutions). I’m sure we’re in for some interesting reading.

Why oh why am I the third result…..

Class Act.

What passed for controversy at the Democrats’ unified convention was stirred by Kerry’s wife. She told a persistent reporter on Sunday to “shove it” when he urged her to expand on her call for more civility in politics.

Everything.

I’ve taken a few days off, from blogging, email and all things politics. But, tomorrow I go back to NYC and I know things will start moving very quickly again and I might not remember all that I wanted to say about this campaign. So, here goes.

I’m about to present the reasons I think Cain didn’t win this election. These opinions should be seen as just my opinion and not the reflection of the campaign’s thinking.

1. With a week to go in the election, Johnny Isakson and Mac Collins got desperate. Both slammed Cain with lies and half-truths. Isakson sent out a mailing that noted Cain gave money to ‘Sen. Kerrey’. As the Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote at the time ‘Isakson has raised $5.5 million, but couldn’t afford to insert “Bob” in the line above.’ Cain had given money to Bob Kerrey, while head of the National Restaurant Association and living in Kerrey’s state of Nebraska. It was over 10 years ago. And, really, if this is the worst you can find on the man, I’d say that makes him pretty damn angelic. More on the flier from the AJC:

**Cain “stood with Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy to extend [the] Iraq handover deadline,” the flier says. At a May forum in Gwinnett County, Cain said he wouldn’t oppose extension of the deadline. “Do it at the right time for the right reason, even if we have to move it,” Cain said. Bush did move the handover — two days forward. Neither Clinton nor Kennedy was in attendance.

**Cain “ran for president against George W. Bush,” the flier says. Bush announced the formation of an exploratory committee for president on March 2, 1999. Cain filed his papers 17 days later, and quickly dropped out.

But, honestly, I don’t think that the Isakson flier had that much of an impact. All the calls I fielded in that weekend before the primary were about the Collins radio piece. Everyone wanted to know, was it true Cain had been endorsed by Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH coalition? No, of course it wasn’t.

From the AJC on the Collins ad:

The Collins radio spot, aired on an Atlanta Christian station and on WSB, first attacked Isakson on abortion, foreign trade and tort reform. Then, Collins put his sights on two issues sure to underline the fact that Cain is African-American.

“Affirmative action’s long outlived its time. … Any ruling that gives preference to anyone, is wrong. Mr. Cain cannot say that. When it comes to endorsements, Mr. Cain was endorsed by the regional director of the Rainbow/PUSH coalition. I’m proud to say I was not.”

Cain does have the support of Joe Beasley, the civil-rights veteran, who is a member of his church.

Said Collins campaign manager Dan Kidder: “No, we’re not playing the race card. We think that it’s important that voters know an organization that’s working against George Bush, and is against Republican principles, is working for Herman Cain.”

The Collins staffers had basically warned us that they were going to hit Herman on, well, his being black. His staffers were giddy whenever we’d see them about Herman’s ‘questionable support’. As a very wise 19-year old friend said ‘is it just me or do you hear Collins trying to make sure everyone knows Herman Cain is a black man everytime he speaks?’ That’s exactly what was happening. The office got flooded with calls about the ad. I wonder about all those people that didn’t call to see if it was true.

2. Mac Collins was a walking disaster area. This one is, I would say, the conventional wisdom of those close to the race as to why Cain didn’t make the runoff. Mac had been hemmoraging staff for months. His campaigning was limited to, pretty much, just his district. And his positions were very similar to Cain’s. He pulled too many voters from Cain and not enough from Isakson. He even lost his own Congressional district. He conceded defeat at 8:30pm on election night, with a tiny fraction of precincts counted. Had he campaigned harder, he might have pulled enough Isakson votes to keep him under 50%. Had he dropped out of the race, his voters would’ve likely gone to Cain. He did neither.

3. Cain ran against two sitting Congressmen. A recent poll had Cain’s name ID at 50% with the Republican electorate. So, half the Republican electorate knew who he was and 30% of them voted for him. That’s pretty impressive for a first campaign. I wonder what would’ve happened if the other 50% knew about Cain. I have yet to meet anyone that hasn’t voted for him after meeting him.

4. This one hurts my heart the most. Cain had a party for his staff on Friday night. We all gathered and he invited people to speak up and say what they wanted to say about the campaign or anything in general. Every single black person present told the same story of coming to their polling precinct and being greeted with utter incredulousness when they asked for a Republican ballot (they don’t register by party in Georgia, you choose which party’s ballot you’d like on election day). Feddie at Southern Appeal noted this story:

I’m an African American who lives in a predominantly African-American precinct. I told the pollsters that I wished to vote Republican (supporting Herman Cain)and filled out a blue form. However, I was still given a Democratic ballot. When I informed the pollsters, one commented that I should just go ahead and vote on the Democratic ballot because “That’s what you should be doing, anyway.” The scary part is that SHE WAS SERIOUS. I eventually got the Republican ballot.

Like I said, heartbreaking. Somehow I doubt this will be seen as disenfranchising of African-Americans. I don’t think there will be panels formed to look into this travesty. It won’t matter to anyone at all.

I have loved my time in Georgia. I saw a lot of the state and very little of Atlanta, just as I had wanted. The Notorious BIG sang in his tune ‘Going Back to Cali’ (modified slightly to remove profanity): ‘If I got to choose a coast, I got to choose the east, I live out there, so don’t go there. But that don’t mean I can’t rest in the west….’ I live in NYC and I do love it, in my own way. But I feel just as at home in Georgia, I feel like I really belong in a ‘red state’, that while I may live in Manhattan, I’m better suited to small towns where people love G-d, love their country and are good to each other. I saw some really beautiful moments in politics while I was here. I saw opponents sit together before a debate and I saw polite exchanges of ideas. It was pretty mind-boggling. I’m going to try to remember every second of it.

Herman Cain will be back. I saw him this morning when he dropped in on the staff having brunch. He says ’stay tuned’ and we all definitely will. If you work or volunteer in politics, I hope you will someday have the opportunity to work for someone that you admire as much as I admire Herman Cain. He is a breath of the freshest air, he is honest, direct, engaging, brilliant, funny and very, very real. He will never forget your name after meeting you. He will never try to pretend to be something he isn’t. It takes guts that I can barely understand to do what he did down here in Georgia. He shaped the debate, his opponents ended up using his language and positions as their own. He is a force, if you ever have the opportunity to hear him speak, go do it. You will never forget it. You will not be the same when it’s over. I know he will do great things and I will be watching closely.

July 21, 2004

Cain loses.

July 20, 2004

Big Day

Today is the Republican primary here in Georgia. If you live in Georgia or know someday who does, vote for Herman Cain and encourage others to do the same. If you’re coming to his victory party tonight (and if you live in Georgia, email me- and soon- and I’ll send you the details) and it looks like I haven’t slept in a month, it’s because I haven’t slept in a month.

In other news, today is 26 years that I have lived in the USA. I have been thankful every single day and continue to marvel at my luck at ending up here. I don’t know if I will have the time to do a full post on this occasion like I like to do each year so I direct you to the post I wrote last year, complete with a photo of me the day I got my citizenship.

July 19, 2004

Bonus.

Quote of the day

‘There’s plenty of groups in the world that hate Israel and the Jews for irrational reasons. And there’s one group in the world, America’s fundamentalist Christians, that embraces Israel and the Jews for, you could say, irrational reasons. And yet I’m told that’s the group I should be afraid of?’
-Yaron from Daily Lunch

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